Parador Turístico Celestún — Attraction in Celestún

We are fortunate because we rent a car on the weekends to be able to get out of Merida and see things.

This is a pretty easy hour 20 minute drive out of Merida. two lane road for most of the time but pretty much no way to get lost.

We went in Jan of 2021 during covid.

So I've read sooo much mis-information about tours here and I'm sure there is more than one way to check out the flamingos but here's what we did.

Once you cross the bridge over ria celestun (its a female river) the FIRST place to turn off on the left is the the reservdela boisfera ria cleestun - parador turisum on the sign - you can't miss it. Go park, walk in, use the restroom, buy a ticket.

The ticket is 1800 pesos to rent the boat. During covid times, it one group per boat - basically the group you came with. I don't know if they allow for combining groups. The price wasn't that much to have the boat all to ourselves - YMMV.

By taking the tour from here vs on the other end of town (gulf of Mexico side) you can start out where you need to be vs having to motor all the way around the point and back.

Walk down to the pier and the next available boat guy will meet you there. Our guy spoke some English so all the better for me. My wife speaks Spanish so she's been a translator for a couple of weeks now.

It took less than 10 minutes to get to where the first batch of flamingos where. on the way over he knew where some crocodiles where hanging out so we got to see like a 4 ft one (head only above the water) kicking back.

We've had great luck with guides and today was no exception. it also helped that we were the ONLY boat on the river (it DOES pay to arrive early ;-) - beat the heat and crowds)

he got us close to every group of birds he could without scaring them off. We check out some other birds as well. As part of the tour we did the mangroves.

He lets us sit on the front of the boat slammed the throttle and powered into a little opening in the mangroves - like a whole different world once you enter.

we parked and check out part of a - not really a cenote - but fresh water was bubbling out of the ground and lots of those fish that will eat your toes where there. He said we could go swimming but we had not prepared for that so unfortunately we didn't get to jump in. After that we checked out another 'creek' into the mangroves got out and looked around there. There are walkways to do all of this BTW.

We check out every group of flamingos we could except for one which was in too shallow water so we couldn't get close.

Headed back after that - gave our guy a great tip for a great ride and headed back to Merida.

Good times and we got to see thousands of Flamingos in a natural location along with a lot of other sea birds.

Hopefully this will be...

(+) I definitely recommend to do a tour in that place, because the fauna and flora you'll see may be one of the most beautiful and varied across all Yucatan. Our guide made it even longer than supposed, and gave us plenty of explanations and descriptions of everything we saw.

(-) The information we were given were very erratic and they clearly should improve that for the future, as it's a turistic place. As renting a boat costs 3000 pesos, it's better being 6 people on it to pay 500 per person. On arrival, one of the captains told us that we could even pay on the boat (probably to keep it all to himself), and we believed him because we were never told by the office that there was a very precise protocol for the tickets. We weren't told that it's a single ticket that should be paid by the whole group all at once, so when we saw other tourists arrive and got in the queue after them to pay our part, the ticket was already issued for 4 people and apparently wasn't changeable (which is absurd since everyone paid cash). They didn't accept us to go in the boat even if we had the money to pay. So we had to wait on the bench in the hall for more than an hour before getting lucky that another group of 4 turists came in. It was a very unpleasant moment because we woke up very early for nothing and we felt very...

This tour was the highlight of our 10 day trip to Mexico. We parked near the beach and took a auto for 20 pesos per person. It was a little tricky to get to as there were no signs, but the auto guy knew where he was taking us. They have set prices. I believe we paid 1200 pesos for 2 people on a Canoe. The Kayak was a little cheaper at 900 pesos. Although Kayak sounds exiting, I would recommend the Canoe, as you can relax and enjoy the different species of birds and animals. We saw at least 15 different species of birds, a little crocodile and a few Iguanas. Angel was our tour guide. These guides are a part of a co-op and they care about preserving the nature unlike the motor boat people. Our Tour guide only spoke Spanish. He explained to us about the different wildlife and the trees in the area. He let us use his binoculars which was awesome.

There is no set time, you can finish the tour in as little as 30 minutes or take up to 2 hours. The Flamingos were amazing. Watching them through the binoculars was an added bonus as you can see all the little details. We did this tour in January and we saw tons of Flamingos and other birds. If you are in the Merida area, do not miss this Canoe tour, it...